The Supreme Court warned unions on Thursday they could be sued for damages if striking workers destroy

their employers

property

from their employer

.

in a

N

With the 8-1 decision, the judges revived a lawsuit filed in Washington state against union executives who allegedly walked away from work one morning after their trucks were loaded with fresh concrete.

The workers they

have not notified their employer in advance. If left unattended,

the

concrete can harden and destroy the truck

s who wear it

the company said.

The question was whether the unions could be sued for alleged damage to property or

instead of

whether such labor dispute should first be reviewed and resolved by the National Labor Relations Board.

With only Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting, the court ruled that the company may file its lawsuit for damages in a state court.

Union leaders said they feared a decision for the company in Glacier Northwest vs. Teamsters would seriously undermine the right to strike.

But Judge Amy Coney Barrett said labor law has long required striking workers to take “reasonable precautions to protect their employer’s property” from damage “resulting from the sudden stoppage of work”.

“In this case, the union’s choice to call a strike after drivers loaded a large amount of wet concrete into Glaciers’ vans strongly suggests that it failed to take reasonable precautions to prevent foreseeable, aggravated and imminent damage to the property of Glacier.” she said.

Her opinion drives

to steer

the case back to a state court in Washington. Chief Justice John G Roberts

Jr

and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Brett M. Kavanaugh concurred.

Judges Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito

Jr

and Neil M. Gorsuch agreed with the outcome, but would have gone further to limit the NLRB’s authority.

Justice

Jackson wrote a 27-page dissent. “Today’s misguided jaunt underscores the wisdom of Congress’s decision to create an agency uniquely placed to review the facts and apply the law in cases such as these,” she said.

said argued

.

is this from the written dissent or a spoken comment?

The company was trying to “shift the duty of protection [its] property damage or loss incident to a strike on the striking workers

…

,”

she added.

“In my opinion, this places a significant burden on workers to exercise their legal right to strike, unjustifiably undermining the intent of Congress. Workers are not indentured servants, required to continue working until a scheduled work stoppage is so would be painlessly possible for It is employees whose collective and peaceful decision to withhold their labor is protected by the NLRA

[National Labor Relations Act]

even if economic damage occurs.”